I am really torn with this show (so much so that I am finally writing my first review on IMDb). Lee Mack and the other fellow comedians are killing it. However, as time goes on, the facts just get less and less interesting AND less and less veritable; I suppose that is only natural.
As far as the freshness of the "facts", it is quite annoying to see old "viral" video ideas. For example, the stacked ball experiment and Rubens' tubes was not so cool seeing a second time.
Ignoring the lack of scientific rigor in most of the tests requiring statistics (e.g. in 5th episode of season 3, the first thing you write down with trying a new pen is your name, not only there are the standard issue of sample size and representability of the test subjects, the data from Kenya seems to be completely dropped in final calculation!), after all it is just a TV show, there are still some unforgivable gaffs. To be specific, in episode 3 season 3, the "rocket scientist" mention about the classic myth on division of tasks between left and right brain. And earlier the fact that sex-related differences in human visual processing capabilities is not a clear cut fact but rather controversial is completely ignored. Later Lee demonstrated the floating cereal and magnet trick (in 3.5), which is not really caused by the iron content in cereal (alone). then in 3.6 the already disproven myth of bull and color red is cited by a guest without opposition... In general it is just extremely weird to see astrophysicist ("rocket scientist") and a space/mechanical engineer to be on the show answering biology questions! (no disrespect for rockets, I myself is trained in math and aerospace in undergrad.)
But of course, there were some quite surprising and amazing facts that I have not heard of before (such as the one about decision making and peeing, which won an Ig-nobel unbeknownst previously to me).
I also have some minor problem with the change of format in Season 3. Since the competition is b*ll*cks anyway, having celebrities/comedians rating each other just created better dynamics than mocking/bullying audiences with extreme scores in general. The lack of "risking" guest campion's life on tricks and gimmicks are sad. But the visual charade is kind of fun.
As far as the freshness of the "facts", it is quite annoying to see old "viral" video ideas. For example, the stacked ball experiment and Rubens' tubes was not so cool seeing a second time.
Ignoring the lack of scientific rigor in most of the tests requiring statistics (e.g. in 5th episode of season 3, the first thing you write down with trying a new pen is your name, not only there are the standard issue of sample size and representability of the test subjects, the data from Kenya seems to be completely dropped in final calculation!), after all it is just a TV show, there are still some unforgivable gaffs. To be specific, in episode 3 season 3, the "rocket scientist" mention about the classic myth on division of tasks between left and right brain. And earlier the fact that sex-related differences in human visual processing capabilities is not a clear cut fact but rather controversial is completely ignored. Later Lee demonstrated the floating cereal and magnet trick (in 3.5), which is not really caused by the iron content in cereal (alone). then in 3.6 the already disproven myth of bull and color red is cited by a guest without opposition... In general it is just extremely weird to see astrophysicist ("rocket scientist") and a space/mechanical engineer to be on the show answering biology questions! (no disrespect for rockets, I myself is trained in math and aerospace in undergrad.)
But of course, there were some quite surprising and amazing facts that I have not heard of before (such as the one about decision making and peeing, which won an Ig-nobel unbeknownst previously to me).
I also have some minor problem with the change of format in Season 3. Since the competition is b*ll*cks anyway, having celebrities/comedians rating each other just created better dynamics than mocking/bullying audiences with extreme scores in general. The lack of "risking" guest campion's life on tricks and gimmicks are sad. But the visual charade is kind of fun.